One common Lethe waits each hapless Bard,
And, peace be with you! 'tis your best reward.750
Such damning fame; as Dunciads only give[1]
Could bid your lines beyond a morning live;
But now at once your fleeting labours close,
With names of greater note in blest repose.
Far be't from me unkindly to upbraid
The lovely Rosa's prose in masquerade,
Whose strains, the faithful echoes of her mind,
Leave wondering comprehension far behind.[2]
Though Crusca's bards no more our journals fill,[3]
Some stragglers skirmish round the columns still;760
Last of the howling host which once was Bell's,[4]
- ↑ Such sneering fame.—[British Bards.]
- ↑ This lovely little Jessica, the daughter of the noted Jew King, seems to be a follower of the Della Crusca school, and has published two volumes of very respectable absurdities in rhyme, as times go; besides sundry novels in the style of the first edition of The Monk.
"She since married the Morning Post—an exceeding good match; and is now dead—which is better."—B., 1816. [The last seven words are in pencil, and, possibly, by another hand. The novelist "Rosa," the daughter of "Jew King," the lordly money-lender who lived in Clarges Street, and drove a yellow chariot, may possibly be confounded with "Rosa Matilda," Mrs. Byrne (Gronow, Rem. (1889), i. 132-136). (See note 1, p. 358.)]
- ↑ [Lines 759, 760 were added for the first time in the Fourth Edition.]
- ↑
Though Bell has lost his nightingales and owls,
Matilda snivels still and Hafiz howls,
And Crusca's spirit rising from the dead
Revives in Laura, Quiz, and X. Y. Z.—[British Bards. First to Third Editions, 1810.]
